Belgium win in Switzerland

Expectations and pressure was high on the Swiss Women’s XVs team, in their first ever home Test Match, which marked the opening of Swiss Rugby Day, a big double-header featuring the men’s European Nations Cup and RWC Qualifier against Lithuania later on in the day. The Swiss had won against the Belgium side in an away game over a year ago and last fall they beat the Finnish National team, away as well.

Right from the kick-off it was a very tough, hard-fought game. The Belgian pack dominated the scrums and most of the contact situations, and outweighed the Swiss pack easily. Switzerland had a lot of ball possession in the opening period, but the Belgians didn’t make it easy for them at all. Hard tackles and quick defensive realignment sometimes made it seem like the Swiss were running into a wall with every attack. When the Belgian team gained ball possession, they were very clinical in their execution, and were able to score a try fairly early thanks to their fast nr.8 breaking right through the middle. Both teams kept fighting hard, but Switzerland couldn’t finish their attacks successfully, while Belgium did. The half-time score was 17:0 for Belgium.

After the break Switzerland pulled themselves together and kept working for a try, which finally came off a series of great pick-and-goes in the forwards, all the way into the try-zone (try scored by replacement prop Angela Diener). This brought the Swiss team a bit of relief, at least mentally. However the Belgians came back strong and eventually scored another try. Just before the final whistle they added successful penalty kick making the score 25 : 5 to the stronger side. Switzerland will take this game as an important learning experience on their way to growing their own programme. Much credit and congratulations go to the Belgian team for their own progress over the past 18 months.